Search form

Search this site

The United States Institute of Peace (USIP) was established by Congress in 1984 as an independent, federally-funded national security institution devoted to the nonviolent prevention and mitigation of deadly conflict abroad.

Infighting Marks Lead Up to Iranian Elections

Published:

December 1, 2011

By:

Thomas Omestad

Next year’s parliamentary elections in Iran have intensified infighting among its conservative elites amid moves by the Islamic Republic’s supreme leader to tighten control of the political system, a panel of Iran specialists concluded at the United States Institute of Peace (USIP) on Nov. 18.

Next year’s parliamentary elections in Iran have intensified infighting among its conservative elites amid moves by the Islamic Republic’s supreme leader to tighten control of the political system, a panel of Iran specialists concluded at the United States Institute of Peace (USIP) on Nov. 18.

The March 2012 parliamentary elections will be the first national-scale contest since the disputed presidential election of 2009 and the ensuing mass protests demanding the removal of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad known as the Green Movement. Next year’s legislative elections could see “the supreme leader’s systematic effort to consolidate power,” particularly to “subordinate conservatives” to his will, said Daniel Brumberg, a Middle East politics expert and a senior advisor in USIP’s Center for Conflict Management. But the success of that effort is not a foregone conclusion, as some conservatives may resist a further closing of the Iranian political system to any form of competition.

Iran’s supreme leader is not the elected president but rather a Shiite religious figure, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has held the post since 1989. Ahmadinejad has worked to undercut the role of the parliament, known as the Majlis, in its legislative, budgetary and oversight roles. Ahmadinejad enjoyed Khamenei’s strong support for many years. But Ahmadinejad’s moves to carve out a more independent and powerful role seem to have run afoul of the supreme leader, and Khamenei supporters in parliament and elsewhere have been emboldened to challenge Ahmadinejad on key issues, such as excluding Ahmadinejad’s allies from what is expected to be the leading conservative bloc in the upcoming elections.

Iran’s internal political struggles are also taking place against a backdrop of economic weakness, driven in part by the growing international pressure and sanctions against Iran for its failure to account for and suspend nuclear fuel production and suspected nuclear weapons activities.

The next presidential election will take place in March 2013, though tensions within the regime have led to speculation that Khamenei has considered eliminating the office of the presidency—a prospect some of the panelists consider unlikely. “The Iranian political system remains very vibrant and very factionalized and very difficult to predict,” said Brumberg.

The significance of the parliamentary contests is seen in the pace of negotiating and horse-trading over which candidates will be part of the leading conservative bloc, said Mehrzad Boroujerdi, an Iran expert and political scientist at Syracuse University. Boroujerdi, who spoke on a Skype connection, said the regime is “trying to bring some order to the chaos of factional fighting.”

Another panelist, Yasmin Alem, agreed that the parliamentary elections are used as an “institutional mechanism” to control factionalism. Iran’s appointed Council of Guardians has increasingly relied on “systematic disqualifications” of reformers and others outside the system by closing legal loopholes for candidacies and making candidate criteria more stringent, and it has manipulated the certification of electoral results, she said. The intent is “to ensure that only those who are really loyal to the supreme leader…are permitted into the parliament,” according to Alem, an independent analyst and author of Duality by Design: The Iranian Electoral System.

Farideh Farhi, an independent political scientist and Iran expert, noted that despite the banning of reformist parties, not all reformers have been purged from parliament or silenced. She said about 30 reformers remain in a parliamentary faction of their own, which can draw on the support of perhaps another 30 deputies.

The fights among conservative players are “about pure power,” she said, and are energized by a “closing of the circle” of those deemed to be reliable supporters of the supreme leader. Said Farhi, “We have entered a period where the most aggressive parts of the Islamic Republic are fighting each other.”

Related Event

Attacks by militants in Kashmir, clashes during public protests and military skirmishes across the Line of Control have escalated tensions between India and Pakistan over the past year to a dangerous degree. The resulting military and civilian casualties fuel a volatile situation between these two nuclear-armed neighbors that poses mounting risks for regional security as well as long-term U.S. interests for peace and stability in South Asia. Join USIP on December 19 for a discussion with a diverse group of South Asia experts on the crisis and the potential U.S. diplomatic role under the next U.S. administration.

Results from Iran’s elections last week show that reformists, centrists and independents—including many new faces—won seats in both parliament and the clerical Assembly of Experts at the expense of hardliners. Garrett Nada, the assistant editor of ...

In a historic milestone of the nuclear agreement reached in July between Iran and the world’s major powers, the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog certified on January 16 that Iran had complied with restrictions on its nuclear program and the international community lifted a range of sanctions...

On Saturday, January 16, Implementation Day for the Iran Nuclear agreement Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) was preceded by a prisoner swap between the United States and Iran, and four Iranian-American hostages were released, including the Washington Post’s Jason Rezaian. In addition,...

Tawakkol Karman, the Yemeni human rights activist who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2011, called on the United States to assume a bigger role in trying to revive a political process that might end the war now tearing her country apart. She urged the U.S. government to lead in pressing for a cease...

Nine months after the Central African Republic (CAR) held free, peaceful and democratic elections for president and parliament, the country continues to struggle for stability and progress. Half of the country remains in need of humanitarian aid, and an increase in violent incidents since September threatens to destabilize any progress made to date. At the end of November, clashes between factions of the ex-Séléka, a formerly united alliance of primarily Muslim armed groups, left 85 dead, 76 injured and 11,000 newly displaced. The targeting of a specific ethnic group in the fighting, the Muslim Fulani/Peuhl community, raises concerns of a descent into ethnic cleansing such as occurred in early 2014. U.S. Institute of Peace experts Fiona Mangan and Igor Acko discuss the current status of armed groups, the barriers to disarmament, and continued international engagement in CAR.

The World Bank Group generally reserves its cheapest loans for the world’s poorest countries. But as protracted conflicts have swelled the number of global refugees, the bank in September unveiled a new, more flexible crisis program that allows, for example, middle-income Jordan and Lebanon, both inundated with uprooted Syrians, to borrow on the bank’s most favorable terms. The shift reflects a growing consensus that traditional distinctions among relief, reconstruction and development work are no longer rational or productive, experts said at a discussion this week at the U.S. Institute of Peace.

The Fragility Study Group is an independent, non-partisan, effort of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, the Center for a New American Security and the United States Institute of Peace. The chair report of the study group, U.S. Leadership and the Challenge of State Fragility, was released on September 12. This brief is part of a series authored by scholars from the three institutions that build on the chair report to discuss the implications of fragility on existing U.S. tools, strategic interests and challenges.

The Fragility Study Group is an independent, non-partisan, effort of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, the Center for a New American Security and the United States Institute of Peace. The chair report of the study group, U.S. Leadership and the Challenge of State Fragility, was released on September 12. This brief is part of a series authored by scholars from the three institutions that build on the chair report to discuss the implications of fragility on existing U.S. tools, strategic interests and challenges.

In a historic milestone of the nuclear agreement reached in July between Iran and the world’s major powers, the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog certified on January 16 that Iran had complied with restrictions on its nuclear program and the international community lifted a range of sanctions imposed on the regime over the past decades. Daniel Brumberg, a special advisor at the U.S. Institute of Peace, considers the ramifications for the region and the world.